


Nightmare

by Bishie Huntress (Artemystic)



Series: 2015 NaNo Prompts [7]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt, Implications, POV Second Person, Trigger Warning - Depression, Trigger Warning - Suicidal Ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-03
Updated: 2016-02-03
Packaged: 2018-05-18 00:47:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5891608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artemystic/pseuds/Bishie%20Huntress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What do you do when the nightmare becomes your life?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nightmare

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't technically a NaNo prompt, but it's not like anyone knows that, and it _is_ based on a prompt, so...
> 
> I know this isn't long (or happy), but if you could please let me know what you think of it after you've read, I'd appreciate it. I'm always a little unsure about posting darker stuffs.
> 
> Thanks! =)

### Nightmare

You spend your whole life running and pretending, but at the end of the day, there is no escape. You think maybe tonight will be different, maybe tonight—just once—you will be able to rest. It doesn’t matter how much you drink. Alcohol just makes the dreams more vivid, more _real_. Staying up late for days on end until you crash from the utter exhaustion just means that, when the nightmares come, you are unable to wake up—trapped in a hell of your own making.

Perhaps, you think, it is time to end this farce of a life. What is keeping you here, anyway? Your brother is whole again. The one you love is lost to another. The only passion you ever had is forever lost to you. What reason is there, then, to continue to suffer night after night? It all seems so pointless.

You contemplate the… methods. Death is messy—there is no getting away from that—but what is the best way to go? You think that maybe you deserve the punishment of pain, something torturously slow. But you are so tired of pain. It could be quick, instead. A bullet to the brain should take care of that. Or perhaps slowly bleeding out in a bath would be better—gently fading away into oblivion.

What will Al think, when he sees you? Will he be horrified at the atrocity you have committed? Or will he understand that the pain is simply too much to bear any longer? Will he be wracked with grief and seek to perform the taboo that you both swore you would never do again? You’re gonna make Winry cry again, damn it. It seems like there is no win-win scenario, here. Which, then, is the lesser of two evils? Is it better to live the life of the forsaken and damned, or is it better to remove the blight of your existence from the face of the world?

Day by day, the nightmares twist further into your brain, sinking thick, heavy tendrils of poison into every crevice until there is nothing left that is not tainted by their horror. It clutches at you, clawed hands dragging you deeper into dank despair, until you cannot even see the brightness of the sun around you. The world has become a flat, dull place, and you an empty shell in it. You avoid your reflection because all you see is a dead man walking.

You have worked hard to perfect the art of avoiding sleep as long as possible without exhausting yourself to the point of helplessness. You are lucky anymore to get two or three hours of sleep at a time, but those nights are the worst, and you find yourself waking on the hard floor, sweaty sheets tangled about you and a scream strangling you.

When your brother calls, you know you don’t sound right. He begs you to tell him what’s wrong, and a pang of guilt twists at your heart when you hear the tears in his voice, but it fades quickly into the apathy that has become your life. You give vague answers about too much work, but you can tell he doesn’t believe you. You can’t stomach the thought of lying to him, though, and you make your excuses before disconnecting.

After a while, you stop going out of the house altogether. When you do find the energy to make yourself food, it turns to ash in your mouth and you pick at it until it is an unrecognizable mess before walking away. The flies find it—love it, gorge themselves on it like tiny Gluttonys—but you really can’t be bothered to clean up. The trash piles up and the kitchen smells like rot.

Books hold little interest for you now. Sometimes you pick one up, but all it does is remind you of the endless search to make things _right_ , the constant _never gonna find a way, have to find a way_ life, always letting down the ones who depend on you the most. In the end, the book lies, heavy and forgotten, in your lap as you stare into nothing for hours at a time.

You still think about dying—maybe a handful of those pain pills Al made you take from the doctor—but you don’t even have the energy for that anymore, and it hits home just how pathetic you’ve really become. Eventually, you figure, you’ll waste away from starvation. Indifference kills just as well as a knife to the femoral artery, after all.

Perhaps this is what you deserve. Perhaps you are already in hell. What right do you have to escape your just punishment? How can you be so pretentious as to believe you merit an end to the agony? You are sinking, sinking, _drowning_ , and there is no way out and no way up. You slide into depthless misery. This is the real price you have to pay for your sins. You should have known it would never end.


End file.
